This Could Be The One To Do Me In
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 994c: Alternate!Rachel has been keeping the secret of how she went and maybe fell in love before returning to her world - Berry-St series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 47th cycle. Now cycle 48!_

* * *

_**Cycle 48/Day 1000 special: **So, yes, in this cycle, a milestone I had to do something special for.  
In this cycle I'm passing my 1000th consecutive day of gleekathon! So for this, the cycle will feature:  
* 21-day/chapter story for the Sunshine Girls series (This Little Light of Mine)  
* 14-day/chapter story special for day 1000 (Let Me Tell You A Story)  
* One-shot installments from 12 series + 2 non-series  
* And for this cycle and this cycle alone (I swear), 7 'triple shift' days, with 3 chapters/stories going up in the day!_

* * *

_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 7 and Let Me Tell You A Story, chapter 7._

* * *

**"This Could Be The One To Do Me In"  
AU!Rachel & AU!Santana, AU!Pezberry  
Berry-St series  
_(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)_  
**

_(A/N: Please read the info above the line! Thanks!)_

Sometimes it felt like she had been handed a clean slate, now that she had been returned to her 'own world.' It had been hard at first for her to accept it, but with time passing, with things changing, she had come to a… revolutionary decision: she was going to do what she wanted.

It would no doubt be taken the wrong way by certain people, if she told them like that, but it was actually a lot more acceptable than they might realize… Not that it would have swayed her either way. But her fathers had actually started talking again, and now she felt free. This had led to two things for her: the discovery of her new mantra, and a decision… she had to find something out.

Back in the day, before this had all started and she had never even set foot in or laid eyes on anyone from McKinley High, she had Carmel High. At Carmel, she was popular. What was that saying again? 'Guys wanted to be with her, girls wanted to be her?' Well that was true. But maybe they needed to read the fine print, or they should update it, because it wasn't just guys who wanted to be with her. And while she wasn't going around, sleeping or messing around with everything that moved, she'd had her share of hook-ups, on either side of the gender line.

It wasn't about love, about long term commitment to anything, so she was more than open to trying things, not limiting herself to something like saying she was into one thing or the other. If she was attracted at all, then why not? This wouldn't last forever, she knew, and one of maybe two things would stop her. Maybe she'd change – good luck with that – or maybe, just maybe, she would meet someone and, dared she think it, fall in love.

She didn't know if this was love she'd fallen into, but maybe the walls were slanted and she was gripping the edges on the outskirts of that great gaping chasm that ended in love. Let's just say she had it bad. There was just one problem now.

They weren't in the same world anymore, and barring another trip into animal-sweater-world, she would never see her again.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She would 'see' 'her' again, because this was of course a parallel world, with everything from one world finding its way here as well, if sometimes altered in some way. So if she, Rachel Berry, existed in this world as much as she did in the other, then so did one Santana Lopez.

She looked the same, sounded the same and, as she'd been made to discover one day sitting behind her in Glee Club, she smelled the same, too. Her knees had good and buckled on that one, earning her a slide a few inches further into that… love chasm. All that was good and fine… so, so fine… but there was still one thing, something that she had to remember – like she could forget: it wasn't the same girl. She didn't know her, Rachel, the same way. In this world, they had recruited Brittany to help them, not Santana, and she had no idea about this swapping matter. More than that, in this world, they had only met weeks ago, when the other Rachel, pretending to be her, had transferred from Carmel to McKinley, to be closer to Jesse and try to get home. This Santana had not known her nearly as long, and she hadn't been read into the situation and helping them.

She remembered, just as she was leaving the other world to return here, Santana's words: she had told her to find 'the other her,' that she would help her. Rachel doubted she knew just what it was she needed help from her for.

Rachel hadn't said a word to her yet. She couldn't. Never in her life had she been shy about anything in this department. Hell, maybe it really was love… just great…

She had to know, once and for all. She had to see if she could look at that girl and forget that she wasn't exactly the same. Looks were one thing, but in the time they had spent together, her 'real' Santana and her, once she'd recruited her, they had gotten closer, as friends; not that close, of course. Now she had to see if, forced to start back from nothing, the spark could catch again. In some respects, the roles had been reversed. When this had started, it was Santana who had known her while she had no clue, and now it was the other way around. She knew Santana, while the girl was still getting to know her. Maybe it could work. She had it on good authority that the girl-on-girl issue was not going to be a problem with her, but if that was all it took then she'd have been home free a long time ago. For once in her jumbled life, she was looking for something real, permanent. But she had to know.

She took a cue from her first encounter with the other Santana… Well, maybe not the first, as this had involved a Slushie to the face from Azimio and her kneeing him, as fun as it would be to repeat that part. She had manipulated her way into an encounter with her at Breadstix. It was even easier this time. She already knew her number.

The way she had dropped in the booth, facing her, Rachel thought 'well that's a start.' "Listen, I know you're still new here, but a couple things you might need to know," Santana had started. Rachel interrupted her.

"I didn't call you here for a lecture."

"Is that right? Wh…" Santana started to reply, and again Rachel cut her off.

"Now, hey, if you don't want the praise and the free lunch, please…" she indicated the door. She saw the slightest hint of a tremble and a frown, and she didn't bother hiding her smile. Now she was realizing her advantage: she knew just what buttons to push to, at the very least, get her to stay and listen before deciding whether or not she needed to chew her out… 'This could be interesting,' Rachel thought to herself.

"What are you talking about?" Santana obliged her.

"Well, you know, I am still new here, at school, and in Glee Club, but that doesn't mean I haven't paid attention and, barring me, you seem to be the most talented one there." Santana gave a 'humble' shrug that just said 'well, sure.'

"And what does that mean?"

"I could go in there and look at you thinking 'there's my competition, how fast can I make that chick go away?' or I could do what I'm doing now, which is sitting here with you in a civilized manner…"

"And tell me to stay the hell out of your way?" Santana stared her down, and Rachel just smiled.

"More like the opposite." Santana considered this in her mind, looking at the girl, intrigued.

"So you're propositioning me in the middle of Breadstix?" she decided to mess with her a bit, but Rachel just took it in stride.

"Well I am buying you dinner," she pointed out, and the twinkle in Santana's eye was almost too much. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, but I'll say this: you and me, we could rule that club. Unless you're content to play second banana like you do in Cheerios," Rachel shrugged, and then she knew she had her.

"I'm not the second anything," Santana stated, and Rachel raised an eyebrow: So? Santana sighed, sitting up. "You're on. What do you want to do?" she fired off, and Rachel fired right back.

"What else, let's duet."

"Fine," Santana grabbed the menu and that was that. Rachel let out a breath… several of them.

Her legs were trembling under the table. She hadn't had such a rush of excitement since… well, since she'd been with the other Santana, in that other world. Maybe she wasn't exactly the same girl, but she gave Rachel the exact same feeling, deep inside, the one no one else had ever elicited. She was pretty sure first order of business when she'd get home would be a cold shower.

After that though, between her dads' reunion, school, Glee Club, and helping the pretend love birds back to their world, she'd have a new mission: she was going to charm the flippy skirt off Santana Lopez.

THE END

* * *

******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


End file.
